Podcast | The AFP on WREL

AFP editor Chris Graham joins WREL’s “Online with Jim Bresnahan” to break down the move by the University of Virginia to hire Tony Bennett from Washington State to be the new UVa. basketball coach. Chris and Jim also talk about the upcoming Final Four, college baseball, the Valley League and more. Length: 32:04. Read more

VCU set to introduce new hoops coach

Virginia Commonwealth didn’t wait long to find its next head basketball coach. Former Florida assistant Shaka Smith will be introduced at the Siegel Center in Richmond on Thursday as the new head man. Smart, 32, replaces Anthony Grant, himself a former Florida assistant, who left VCU last week to take the head job at Alabama. Read more

Governor’s Race Notebook

- McAuliffe gets endorsement of Boilermakers
- AFSCME endorses McAuliffe
- Former Young Dems leaders endorse Moran
- Ebbin endorses Moran
- Korean-American organization endorses Moran
- Appomattox endorsements for Moran
- Deeds statement on Dominion rate-increase request Read more

Moran, Wagner take leads in pre-primary polls

Brian Moran has moved into the lead in the governor’s race, and Jody Wagner seems to be running away in the battle for the Democratic Party lieutenant-governor nomination, in a new Public Policy Polling survey out Tuesday.
Moran had been trailing Terry McAuliffe by a 21 percent-to-19 percent margin in the February PPP poll, but now leads 22 percent to 18 percent, with Bath County State Sen. Creigh Deeds gaining a point from last month to go from 14 percent to 15 percent. Read more

Greg Marrow | Transportation fix

Recently there has been much discussion, which is gathering momentum, to privatize the 41 rest areas along the 325 miles of I-81 in an effort to save the Virginia Department of Transportation about $12 million. While this may sound appealing in the short term, it will do little, if anything, to solve the much larger problem of the failure to fund VDOT overall. Read more

UVa. confirms Bennett hire

It’s official – Tony Bennett is the new men’s basketball coach at the University of Virginia.
“Tony Bennett comes to the University of Virginia with a plan to build our program,” said UVa. athletics director Craig Littlepage, whose own future at the University seems to hang in the balance with the much-discussed hire, at $1.7 million a year for five years with a $500,000 signing bonus and an additional bonus of $500,000 if he completes the five-year life of the contract. Read more

No children left behind?

The good news – area graduation rates are right at or just above the state average. The bad news – we’re still only graduating around four in five ninth-graders in four years, and close to one in 12 are dropping out altogether.
That is the revelation from Tuesday’s release of the Virginia School Report Card tracking the on-time graduation rate for ninth-graders in Virginia public schools in the 2004-2005 school year. Read more

Mad Hatter’s Easter Parade

The Wayne Theatre Alliance and the Waynesboro YMCA will welcome spring to the Valley with a fun-packed three hours for children of all ages on Saturday, April 11. The White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter will open the gates to the Mad Hatter’s Easter Parade in Waynesboro’s Constitution Park at 11 am. For the next three hours, the park will be the place for live entertainment, pony rides, crafts, a parade and an Easter egg hunt. Free balloons will be provided by Kids & Sew On. Read more

Kaine announces actions on Renew Virginia

Gov. Tim Kaine announced action on Tuesday on several pieces of legislation related to his Renew Virginia green initiative, including a series of amendments to bills included in the package.
- SB 1248 – Northam
This bill originally implemented the number one recommendation of the Climate Change Commission: the establishment of a mandatory energy efficiency standard under which electricity consumption would be reduced by 19 percent of 2006 levels by 2025. Read more

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

- Local News: Staunton Police need help with B&E case (with photos), Tuesday, 3:25 p.m.
- State News: Updates to Stimulus.Virginia.Gov website, Tuesday, 3:25 p.m.
- State News: Kaine signs bill requiring bittering agent added to antifreeze to protect animals, Tuesday, 3:25 p.m.
- Event: Easter Egg Hunt in Harrisonburg, Tuesday, 10:40 a.m.
- Local News: EMU alum named to New York court post, Tuesday, 10:40 a.m.
- Event: JMU School of Theatre and Dance concert, Tuesday, 10:40 a.m.
- Event: Staunton Jewish Film Festival this weekend, Tuesday, 10:40 a.m.
- Local News: Students to release trout at Fly Fishing Festival, Tuesday, 10:40 a.m. Read more

E pluribus

E pluribus, unum.
From many, one.
That’s the America I believe in.
Where you can be an evangelical Christian or a Unitarian or Jew or Muslim or amalgam or atheist or agnostic.
You can be pro-life or pro-choice or gay or lesbian or straight as an arrow and anti-gay marriage or Republican or Democrat or Libertarian or libertarian or Green or Constitution or a radical centrist. Read more

Even more bad newspaper news

Now the bad newspaper news is that the News Leader is going to outsource its printing operations to Harrisonburg effective April 13.
“Two years ago, outsourcing the production might not have made much sense. But the production has a heavy cost and high overhead, and operating an aging press in this economic situation isn’t our best option,” Leader publisher Roger Watson said in a story posted on the paper’s website this afternoon announcing that move and the layoffs of eight full-time and 15 part-time employees. Read more

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